Odisha Vigilance raids three places in sting operation case

A day after four ruling BJD MLAs alleged being blackmailed by a person who had conducted a sting operation on them, the Anti-Corruption Vigilance sleuths today executed simultaneous raids in Bhubaneswar and Balasore and seized some documents.
"The raids were conducted at three places, two in Bhubaneswar and one in Balasore, in connection with the sting operation incident," Director of vigilance R P Sharma told reporters here.
Sharma said the materials seized during the raids would be sent to the forensic laboratory for examination.
The anti-graft wing of the Odisha Police, which has been assigned the investigation by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, conducted the raids after the four MLAs filed separate FIRs at Kharvel Nagar police station alleging they were blackmailed by a person who conducted the sting operation posing himself as an industrialist.

A team led by vigilance SP raided the office of a web channel and seized some hard disks, CDs, pen drive and some documents in Bhubaneswar.
Another team raided the house of a video journalist at Dudapal under Kamarda police station in Balasore district.
Though the journalist was not present during the raid, the sleuths searched his house.
The four BJD MLAs - Seemarani Nayak (Hindol), Susant Kumar Behera (Chhendipada), Bijay Kumar Nayak (Karanjia) and Anam Nayak (Bhawanipata) - were shown by a local news channel negotiating with an industrialist to set up units in their Assembly segments and demanding bribes in exchange.